Dead Bodies

[Col Deadmarsh]

I've played the demo and liked it a lot but I have one thing to say about CM. I'm not happy about the fact that dead bodies aren't shown on the screen. Now, I know this isn't possible with today's technology but can't something be put in place of the fallen soldier to let the player know someone has died.

When one of my men gets shot, I have to pull up the screen to find out how many got killed from a grenade hit or whatever. I really think this take away from the realism. Surely, a helmut or grave marker, or something can be put in it's place to give a better realism effect. Without this, infantry fighting really suffers. I think a lot of people would agree with me on this and will just go back to playing Close Combat to satisfy their needs.

What about an option feature for the players to keep everyone happy? And if there isn't time to make one, can a 3rd party mod be made for this by someone else?

[IntelWeenie]

There was lots of discussion on this in the past before the game was released. In a nutshell, BTS says they won't do it, for lots of reasons. The only corpses that will show are a single soldier laying face up when his unit (squad, team, crew, etc.) are totally destroyed.

If you want more info, try a search on "dead Bodies". Hope this helps some.

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"Belly to belly and everything's better" - Russian proverb

[jdmorse]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Colonel_Deadmarsh:

I'm not happy about the fact that dead bodies aren't shown on the screen.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Ahh Colonel, sir....not sure you must be playing the beta demo, I believe the Gold demo (at least w/ 1.02 patch) and the full game does have markers. A single figure on their back w/ a leg raised.You have to remember that the squads are abstracted somewhat. However a ongoing update occurs during action. If you click on squad you see the unit status of effectives and it changes as action happpens.

FYI this had been extensively discussed prior to release of Gold demo and BTS listened and put it in, part of their ongoing committment to the consumer

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"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers"

-- King Henry VI, Part II, Act 4, sc.2, l.86

[This message has been edited by jdmorse (edited 08-23-2000).]

[aka_tom_w]

There have been MANY threads about this:

Try this one:

http://www.battlefront.com/discuss/Forum1/HTML/004014.html

Steve's comments are wildly entertainging!

BTW there are Dead Bodies

One single dead body is left on the ground when the last man in the unit is incapacitated, or becomes a casuality.

If you look closely at the battle field

there are dead bodies when units are wiped

out.

This has been a Very hotly debated topic in the past.

-tom w

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<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> "Remember that no dumb bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country."

G. S. Patton

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

[aka_tom_w]

oops

[This message has been edited by aka_tom_w (edited 08-23-2000).]

[Kingfish]

Imagine the CPU hit in trying to display a couple of battalions worth of dead men after a 120 turn battle. It's almost too much for my computer to play one of those monsters, and that's with a 3-man squad representation.

[colton]

i agree with the colonel it would make the game more realistic even to have a marker when a single man out of the squad dies not just one dead man for the whole squad

[pucker]

If you keep a close eye on the combat there are also visual and audio signs that a unit is taking hits.

You either see a jerk action accompanied by a groan or a shout for the medic.

I agree with the above message that in big games hundreds of bodies would be a strain on the CPU and confusing for the players.

[Kingfish]

I love a good debate, especially on company time

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>When one of my men gets shot, I have to pull up the screen to find out how many got killed from a grenade hit or whatever<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Take a company of troops, have them advance into combat, take incoming fire and losses, and then tell me how you are going to know how many men are still alive in squad F-3 just by looking at the number of bodies on the ground. You can't, so you still have to click on F-3 to find out, therefore the dead bodies serve no useful function.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Surely, a helmut or grave marker, or something can be put in it's place to give a better realism effect. Without this, infantry fighting really suffers<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

But will your infantry tactics suffer? And that is the whole point of playing the game.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>I think a lot of people would agree with me on this and will just go back to playing Close Combat to satisfy their needs.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Needs?

[Mikester]

One more item that needs to be added to the FAQ.

Mikester out.

[L.Tankersley]

It's already answered in the FAQ. ::throws shoulder out patting self on back::

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Leland J. Tankersley

[M Hofbauer]

"Dead Bodies"

they're not dead - they're sleeping

[jdmorse]

Another point just occurred to me. Usually, the "dead body advocates" say in the interest of realism. Since most firefights are 30-60 minutes long, w/ groups going in and out of C&C and every account of combat I see talks about the mass of confusion and since CM is not a game on the one person level, then not having complete, god's eye view of everything, IS being "realistic". Heaven knows I have had enough tanks taken out by something I haven't spotted or have a clue. Sh*t happens and that's realistic.

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"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers"

-- King Henry VI, Part II, Act 4, sc.2, l.86

[Col Deadmarsh]

quote:

-----------------------------------------

Take a company of troops, have them advance into combat, take incoming fire and losses, and then tell me how you are going to know how many men are still alive in squad F-3 just by looking at the number of bodies on the ground. You can't, so you still have to click on F-3 to find out, therefore the dead bodies serve no useful function.

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The point I'm trying to get across here is that when I'm in an infantry fight and one or more of my men dies, I don't get the sensation of this happening even with the audio clues. In Close Combat, you actually see your men die or see them get hurt as the color on the screen goes from green to yellow. This gives the player the sensation that he really is losing men in his squad during the fight.

In Combat Mission, you hear a couple of moans or whatever and then when it's all over, you click on the screen and find out that you lost 6 men in that battle. Well, that seperates me from the realism. It becomes like a dice-rolling game. You find out the exact outcome, yes, but there is no sensation of actually being in the battle. All you see is men shooting back and forth until all of a sudden, the whole team disappears leaving one dead body remaining. This bothers me a lot.

quote:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I think a lot of people would agree with me on this and will just go back to playing Close Combat to satisfy their needs.

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quote:

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Needs?

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Yes, needs. The need to feel as though I'm losing my men one by one as my squad does battle with the enemy. I wish this didn't bother me so much but it does. I thought the turn-based/real-time hybrid play would annoy me the most but that I got over. This though is enough to make me think twice about buying the game. I seriously don't know if I could get used to it. At the very least, I would buy CM and still spend 50% of my time playing Close Combat 2 to get the advantages of it's infantry fighting.

One question for everyone who has the full version: Can that unit screen be displayed in playback mode so you can monitor when a soldier gets killed in real time or can the screen only be pulled up after the fighting is over?

[IntelWeenie]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Kingfish:

I love a good debate, especially on company time

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Hee, hee! Me, too!

Worth mentioning about the references to the CPU hit involved in showing dead bodies. CM does not use sprites; all units (incl. each soldat) are 3D models. Therefore, each "dead body" is rendered just like each live one. This is also one reason why squads are represented by 3 men instead of 8-12.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>One question for everyone who has the full version: Can that unit screen be displayed in playback mode so you can monitor when a soldier gets killed in real time or can the screen only be pulled up after the fighting is over?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Actually, the reference was to the unit info shown at the bottom of the screen when you click on a unit, I think. Yes, it is shown during playback. The unit detail screen (showing firepower/armor/penetration/kills) can be shown during playback, too.

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"Belly to belly and everything's better" - Russian proverb

[This message has been edited by IntelWeenie (edited 08-23-2000).]

[aka_tom_w]

"One question for everyone who has the full version: Can that unit screen be displayed in playback mode so you can monitor when a soldier gets killed in real time or can the screen only be pulled up after the fighting is over?"

Yes

in the movie (even in the demo no?) you can select that unit and watch it die a slow one man by one man, painful death.

Then when there are none left what was the unit lies down and becomes a dead body.

I think if you look closely you can watch the unit go from three men down to two men (2 or 3 dead) to one man (4 - 6 Dead), and these casualties will show up in the screen beside the red cross + at the bottom of the screen.

This Aspect of CMBO works EXCEPTIONALLY well and IMHO need not be triffled with.

-tom w

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<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> "Remember that no dumb bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country."

G. S. Patton

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

[David Aitken]

Colonel_Deadmarsh wrote:

> I think a lot of people would agree with me on this and will just go back to playing Close Combat to satisfy their needs.

Heaven forbid.

This has been discussed more times than I care to remember. Do a search.

To summarise, individual men are not simulated in this game. The three-man squad you see is a placeholder. It is a counter representing your squad. This is a squad-level game, and individual men only feature in an abstracted form.

The unit info window is real-time.

Now spend some time looking around and listening before you start telling us how the game should be. The reactions you get will not be individual, because this happens all the time.

David

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There's a splinter in your eye, and it reads REACT

[Seanachai]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by colton:

i agree with the colonel it would make the game more realistic even to have a marker when a single man out of the squad dies not just one dead man for the whole squad<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Sorry, not true. Please keep in mind that you are not just watching men 'die'; units take casualties, not just die one after another. Some of these men are wounded, some have, in all actuality, buggered off to the rear, some of the casualties are probably being withdrawn by medics, etc. etc. It is inherently unrealistic to want individual markers for each casualty to merely depict them as lying there dead. Besides the CPU hit that has been pointed out already, several times, (and that people keep ignoring because they want what they want, and aren't interested in the limits of reality), the battlefield would quickly become so cluttered with 'completely unnecessary to actual game play' casualty markers as to make it indecipherable. Please read previous threads on this issue.

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After witnessing exceptional bravery from his Celtic mercenaries, Alexander the Great called them to him and asked if there was anything they feared. They told him nothing, except that the sky might fall on their heads.

[Airborne]

My advice: Don't buy the game. You will never be satisfied. Go back to playing CC--I know I never will (nor will most of the people on this forum).

This feature is simply not needed. And you will never see it..

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Land Soft--Kill Quiet

[Tiger]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>In Close Combat, you actually see your men die or see them get hurt as the color on the screen goes from green to yellow. This gives the player the sensation that he really is losing men in his squad during the fight.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yes that does seem realistic, watching the screen for the colour bar to change so you know what's happening. IMO any decent "commander" knows when his units are taking losses.

Close combat is no comparison to Combat Mission. Top-down 2-d turn-based vs 3-d wego system. Combat Mission wins hands down, imho.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>All you see is men shooting back and forth until all of a sudden, the whole team disappears leaving one dead body remaining. This bothers me a lot.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Obviously Combat Mission would bother me alot if I was one of the designers for Close Combat. "...All you see is shooting back and forth until all of a sudden, the whole team disappears..."

This is not what happens and if you had played the game for any length of time this would be apparent. As a unit takes incoming fire, it will fire back, fall to the ground, seek cover, charge if appropriate, run away, toss gernades, launch AT weapons, fire flamethrowers; you'll hear the sounds of men dying, men getting hit, and out of the 3 figures that represent a squad, every time 1/4th of a squad is eleminated, one of the three representative figures will be removed. When the last figure of the representaive 3-man squad is gone, a "dead" figure lies on the ground.

I'm sorry but you'd have to be a catatonic to not be able to know men in a unit are taking fire and casulties in Combat Mission.

God knows I'll never go back to close combat's overhead 2-d format.

I can't wait to see CM 2,3, and 4.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>I think a lot of people would agree with me on this and will just go back to playing Close Combat to satisfy their needs.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

you quoted your own self?

I don't agree at all. I actually think most people who play the demo of CM will get hooked, simply because it's the BEST WW 2 game of its type.

-johnS

[This message has been edited by Tiger (edited 08-23-2000).]

[Chupacabra]

Yanno -

People with suggestions on how to improve CM are fine, and as Steve and Charles have pointed out, many player-made suggestions have made it into the game. But why must people continue to insist that they're right, and everyone else is wrong, and without their pet feature, CM is inevitably crippled?

Col. Deadmarsh - Apologies if I come off harsh, it's not my intention. But understand that when we say "this has been discussed to death, do a search," that's not really an invitation to try to convince us otherwise.

It's just going to lead to frustration on both sides. Without meaning to sound superior, you really can't judge the issues involved based solely on the demo. As IntelWeenie suggested, do a search on "dead bodies." You're likely to find that a lot more helpful than trying to proselytize us.

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Soy super bien, soy super super bien, soy bien bien super bien bien bien super super.

[Col Deadmarsh]

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People with suggestions on how to improve CM are fine, and as Steve and Charles have pointed out, many player-made suggestions have made it into the game. But why must people continue to insist that they're right, and everyone else is wrong, and without their pet feature, CM is inevitably crippled?

Col. Deadmarsh - Apologies if I come off harsh, it's not my intention. But understand that when we say "this has been discussed to death, do a search," that's not really an invitation to try to convince us otherwise.

It's just going to lead to frustration on both sides. Without meaning to sound superior, you really can't judge the issues involved based solely on the demo. As IntelWeenie suggested, do a search on "dead bodies." You're likely to find that a lot more helpful than trying to proselytize us.

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I don't think I was trying to convince anyone of anything. I was merely stating my opinion. Apparently, that's too much for some people to handle. And I'm not necessarily talking about you.

As for doing a search, I already did one before I posted and saw that a lot of people agreed with me. And just because it's been posted before doesn't mean it can't be posted again. Besides, what I was reading took place last year. If you don't wanna read about the "dead body" problem, then don't read this thread. It's as simple as that. Just don't go acting superior because you've been here longer than me. Make your point and move on.

Some people though have convinced me to take another look and maybe if I had the soldier screen up while fighting so I could see my men disappearing, it would help. I'm sure the full version is a lot better than the demo too and there will be other things I haven't seen yet on the demo that will be on the full game that might make up for what it lacks in asthetics.

[Guest Germanboy]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Colonel_Deadmarsh:

I think a lot of people would agree with me on this and will just go back to playing Close Combat to satisfy their needs. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Col_Deadmarsh, you've convinced me! What was I thinking? I will hand my CD to a charity store, throw out my Macs and get me a PC, so that I can play that clearly and vastly superior CC series until I keel over and foam starts coming from my mouth (10 cool points if you spot the reference). Off I go.

Just read your last post. Seriously, CM is not CC, and there are vast differences in the underlying engines and capabilities of the game. The fact that they are both WW2 wargames means only that they have as much in common as a Fiat Punto and a BMW 850i, they are both cars, after all. But just because the Punto comes with four doors will not make many people change the BMW for it.

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Andreas

[This message has been edited by Germanboy (edited 08-23-2000).]

[Col Deadmarsh]

Okay, I just purchased the game. I liked the tank fighting too much to pass it up. Time will tell if I can get used to the infantry combat.

Hopefully, this game will prolong my lifespan. That Close Combat 2 AI was giving me high blood pressure. It'll be good to spend some time away from it.

[David Aitken]

Colonel_Deadmarsh wrote:

> As for doing a search, I already did one before I posted and saw that a lot of people agreed with me.

Some people agree with you. These people invariably don't understand the game.

> And just because it's been posted before doesn't mean it can't be posted again.

Technically this is correct. But you haven't said anything which hasn't been said before, and the reason why what you're asking for is inappropriate has been explained at length many times before. Therefore there is no good reason to resurrect the subject.

> Besides, what I was reading took place last year. If you don't wanna read about the "dead body" problem, then don't read this thread.

There is no 'dead body problem'. And if we didn't read threads like this, people with misconceptions about the game would continue to misunderstand. We don't have anything against you personally, but we do feel strongly that your argument is flawed.

> It's as simple as that. Just don't go acting superior because you've been here longer than me. Make your point and move on.

Assertions such as:

> Without this, infantry fighting really suffers. I think a lot of people would agree with me on this and will just go back to playing Close Combat to satisfy their needs.

...do you no favours. You're not making suggestions, you're announcing that (1) the game is wrong, and (2) another game (which is in effect completely different) is better. In other words, you are adopting a superior posture, so don't go complaining when the people who have been here longer seem to be acting superior. The fact is, they understand the game better than you.

If you've got a problem, ask. Ask, are people aware of this? Has it been discussed before? What was the conclusion? Don't march in and make an announcement as though it's a revelation that no-one has ever thought of before.

David

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There's a splinter in your eye, and it reads REACT